Apple May Scale Back 2011 iPhone Orders

By Jeff Gamet

Aug 19th, 2011 9:32 AM EDT

A few days ago DigiTimes said Apple was ramping up its iPhone orders for the second half of the year, but now it’s saying the company is cutting back its fourth quarter parts shipments because of changes in the global economy.

Word of the apparent reversal in course for Apple comes from parts suppliers claiming the company, along with other smartphone makers, expect to see some impact from economic changes.

The previous report claimed Apple was ramping up its iPhone orders for the second half of the year from 50 million up to 56 million units. Nearly 26 million of those phones were expected to be new iPhone 5 units.

Apple hasn’t announced the iPhone 5 yet, but is generally expected to release the new combination iPod and smartphone some time in September or October.

Considering the quick reversal in orders numbers, both reports should be taken with at least one grain of salt.